Buckingham House,
New Hall College, Cambridge

This new building for a college of the University of Cambridge has 35 study bedrooms, student common rooms, an auditorium in the basement and two seminar rooms. The biggest design challenge was to allow for the construction of the three-storey building with a basement on a very small site and in a 12 month period.

The solution was to prefabricate almost all the main structure as well as the bathrooms. This involved the use of pre-stressed, hollow-core concrete floor slabs, pre-cast concrete columns, pre-cast concrete stair and landing units, prefabricated steelwork girder beams and columns, as well as 35 prefabricated fully fitted and finished bathroom units. The construction cost was £3.1 million and it was completed on time.

This is an £400,000 extension to the existing infants school and proves a reception, toilets and a large open plan school room.

Two new roof lights were installed in the existing adjoining room to compensate for the loss of daylight arising from the extension.

The roof is supported on steel rafters spanning the full width of the extension to allow maximum flexibility for future internal alterations. The foundations are reinforced concrete ground beams on mass concrete pad bases because of the proximity of the existing trees and the clay subsoil.